Stratfor Weekly: Iraq's Strategic Dilemma

Here is your complimentary Stratfor Weekly, written by our Chairman and Founder, Dr. George Friedman.

Saddam Hussein's future course of action depends upon his perception of his military options and capabilities. U.S. officials view the Iraqi military through the lens of 1991, but Iraqi leaders have had 11 years to rethink their war-fighting doctrine. They know they will be immobilized and that U.S. air power will shatter their communications and intelligence networks. Of necessity, therefore, they have developed a static and self-contained strategy -- one that flies in the face of military doctrines since World War I. Nevertheless, such a strategy is Hussein's only option, and it depends upon something that might be difficult to achieve: the ability to offer some effective resistance early in the war.

In recent days, a flurry of rumors emerged around the world about initiatives to persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave office peacefully. Countries that had tried to prevent the occupation of Iraq by the United States via U.N. mechanisms began to shift their attention to preventing occupation by persuading Hussein to accept exile.

For Hussein, exile is an unattractive choice. His likelihood of survival in Moscow, Khartoum or Tripoli -- all cities that have been mentioned -- is not high; his likelihood of winding up in front of some international court is much higher. He very well might prefer death. Certainly, the only way that he would consider exile is if he feels that total defeat is inevitable. Rational or not, it does not appear that Hussein regards defeat that way. To be more precise, while he certainly does not believe that he can defeat the United States and its allies outright, he does believe that the U.S. threshold for casualties is sufficiently low that if he can shape the battlefield in a particular -- if difficult -- way, he could fight the United States to a cease-fire.

Hussein clearly understands the foundations of U.S. strategy. Strategically, the United States will use air power to deny the Iraqi army mobility, communications or intelligence. Iraqi forces will be rendered deaf, dumb and strategically immobile. Operationally, the United States will use air power to shatter the infrastructure of the Iraqi forces, U.S. ground forces will envelop them and Iraqi ground forces will be expected to crumble. This is certainly what happened in Kuwait in 1991, and Iraqi leaders have been studying their failures for more than a decade.

They know that they cannot deny the U.S. command of the air, nor can they engage in a war of maneuver in the desert. They know that they will become immobile, unable to communicate and blind to anything beyond what they can see without the aid of technology. Therefore, their strategy must be to develop a static, self-contained defensive system whose key elements are both strategically placed and resistant to air attack. Obviously, this violates the norms of warfare since World War II, in which maneuver warfare has been the operant principle. It is not clear that Hussein can make static warfare work. Nevertheless, if he is to survive, he must make static warfare work for him. He does not have the option of maneuver warfare in an environment dominated by U.S. air power.

The foundation of static warfare is resistance to air power. The Iraqis must create a series of positions based upon three principles:

1. Concealment: Having studied Yugoslav tactics in Kosovo, Iraqi leaders understand that concealment -- ranging from strategic confusion as to the precise location of assets, to tactical confusion based on camouflage -- can limit the effectiveness of U.S. air power. Precision-guided munitions have many strengths but also an inherent weakness. Being precise, the weapon must be able to strike the target precisely. There is no forgiveness; any element of targeting confusion, from the strategic to the tactical, can cause the attack to fail. Telling a real tank from a dummy, even using advanced sensors, remains an imperfect science, to say the least.

2. Hardening: Many targets will be identified under any circumstances. Steps can be taken to harden targets against air attacks. Some emplacements, like command bunkers and storage sites for weapons of mass destruction, have had years to be buried deep under reinforced concrete. However, even infantry emplacements can be hardened to make them resistant, if not impervious, to air strikes. Iraq learned lessons in Kuwait, as did the United States.

3. Intermingling: All war is political. The United States needs to defeat Hussein soundly. U.S. leaders do not want to inflict massive civilian casualties -- not because they are sentimental, but because it would undermine Washington's shaky coalition. Hussein is aware that the higher the demonstrable civilian casualties, the stronger his political position. Therefore, it is in Baghdad's interest to intermingle military forces with the civilian population, forcing attacks on Iraqi troops that will be translated into massive civilian casualties and dramatic photos in the Western and Islamic media. This was not easy to do in Kuwait, where combat zones were not always identical to population centers. It will be much easier in Iraq.

These positions are not ends in themselves. They are not designed simply to protect Iraqi forces. Rather, the goal will be to position these forces, strategically and tactically, at points that U.S. forces cannot simply bypass -- at points that must be engaged.

On a strategic level, we can see this in the deployment of Iraqi forces around major oil fields near Basra and around Kirkuk in the north. These forces are positioned in such a way that they cannot be avoided, either in the sense of moving to Baghdad or in capturing the oil fields -- but they could be effectively dug in and ready to destroy oil wells when approached, which is a variety of hardening.

In the same sense, the United States cannot avoid attacks on WMD sites. If these are hardened and somewhat indeterminate, then U.S. ground forces will have to move in. Similarly, on a tactical level, the ability to place forces in positions that are not easily struck from the air but which control critical road junctions, creates a situation where Iraqi forces -- if they survive the air attacks -- must be engaged and defeated, bringing U.S. ground forces within range.

The purpose of strategic and tactical strong points is to force U.S. ground forces into fields of fire that depend on vision, rather than on any electronic systems that U.S. technology can shut down. The ultimate fixed points which cannot simply be bombed into submission are the cities -- including Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul, but particularly Baghdad. Baghdad is a city the size of Detroit, out to Ann Arbor and Flint, Mich. It has more than 5 million people. It cannot be bombed into submission without unacceptable civilian casualties, nor can it be starved into submission without starving civilians along with soldiers.

The central U.S. assumption is that the Iraqis will disintegrate early in the war, so that Baghdad either will be a prize handed over by a general who has overthrown Hussein or simply will involve a mopping-up operation. Hussein's strategy apparently is to turn Baghdad into a battle zone where he will impose casualties on the Americans that cannot be tolerated, in an environment in which U.S. technological superiority is minimized and Iraqi manpower is maximized. From Hussein's point of view, if he can extract U.S. lives for each strong point and greater casualties in taking strategic targets, then he can force the United States to a threshold of pain where it will choose not to continue the campaign. From his viewpoint, buying enough time to inflict substantial casualties will force the United States to accept a cease-fire short of regime change.

Baghdad's perception might be completely wrong. Nevertheless, the idea that Washington is unwilling to take casualties is an idee fixee in many circles, based on perceived U.S. behavior in Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia and Afghanistan. The idea is not that the U.S. military can't take casualties, but that the U.S. public and therefore U.S. politicians won't tolerate them. Therefore, Hussein appears to reason that if he can create strongholds that cannot be reduced from a distance and which must be seized by U.S. ground forces -- even if the casualty ratio is tilted heavily against Iraq -- then Iraq can reach a threshold that will force a cease-fire.

The central issue here is disintegration. Military power consists of many variables, including numbers, training and equipment. In defensive, positional warfare, all of these decline in importance, since urban environments and fortifications are major force multipliers. Cities in particular tend to negate U.S. technological advantages and to maximize Iraqi advantages -- if the Iraqis are there to fight. That is the key to Baghdad's strategy -- the willingness of some segment of its forces to stand and fight, even inexpertly, at the strong points and cities that must be taken by armor and infantry. And that willingness to stand and fight is a matter of the most significant variable in warfare: morale.

Nothing is harder to predict than an adversary's morale -- or the morale of one's own troops, for that matter. History is littered with false assumptions about the enemy's morale -- his willingness to endure death and suffering for his cause or country. The Japanese vastly underestimated U.S. morale in World War II. U.S. commanders underestimated the Vietnamese. The Israelis underestimated Egyptian morale in 1973, and Washington overestimated Iraqi morale in 1991. Estimates of morale come from past experience and wishful thinking. In war plans, the easiest solution to difficult battle problems is to assume that your enemy will fight poorly if at all -- that is, easiest until the battle field is reached.

Nevertheless, Iraqi morale was atrocious in 1991, and the Iraqi army is aware of this fact as well. During the 1973 attack on Israel, the Egyptians and Syrians both knew that their greatest danger was in the first hours of the war. Their own troops were suffused with defeatism from their memories of 1967. However, if they could fight effectively in the first hours, then they could fight effectively for a day. If they fought well for a day, then perhaps for a week. Even if they weren't victorious, they would not simply be routed.

Hussein's army remembers 1991. It does not believe in itself, but if it can stand and fight for a few hours, it might stand for a day. And if it stands for a day, it might not win, but it might impose the casualties Hussein thinks he needs. For Hussein, therefore, there are three critical phases of the battle:

1. Maintaining a degree of morale in the face of the inevitable pounding by U.S. air power.

2. Being able to resist U.S. ground forces during the first day of the attack, inflicting enough casualties to force at least tactical retreats by the Americans and their allies -- even if positions are finally overwhelmed.

3. Using this demonstration that the United States is not invincible to generate further resistance on the road to Baghdad and, finally, effective resistance in Baghdad itself.

Morale is not enthusiasm for the regime. It is not even love of country. It is unit cohesion in the face of fire. It is the willingness to continue combat when alternatives -- surrender, desertion, inaction -- are available. Where there is no hope of survival and no hope of victory, there is morale only under extraordinary circumstances. The Iraqis will not produce a Thermopylae. However, where there is some hope of some sort of victory coupled with hatred of the enemy, there can be resistance. If, on the first day of fighting, there is sufficient resistance to convince forces in Baghdad that there is a chance of victory, then there might be sufficient resistance to force a battle of attrition in Baghdad.

Hussein's dilemma is how to deliver that first day. His best troops are the four Republican Guard divisions near Baghdad. In the south, the forces deployed are among the weakest, but the terrain is the worst. In the north, near Kirkuk and Mosul, there are better forces, including five Republican Guard divisions. None of these can stand up to U.S. forces in the open -- and after weeks of bombing, even fixed fortifications are difficult. Hussein will need an equalizer to buy him some time, some casualties and some confidence from his troops. Attacks on Tel Aviv or New York won't buy him that confidence. It will have to come on the battlefield.

Hussein's strategy must be to put up a good fight during the first major ground engagements of the war, hoping that holding his own for even a few hours will stiffen morale, particularly in Baghdad. The problem is that the earliest engagements will be in areas where the poorest troops are located and where U.S. capabilities are the greatest. If the war turns into a rout in the first days, then total disintegration is possible. Putting up a fight early on is the toughest mission.

Therefore, if Hussein is going to use chemical weapons, it will be during the first days of the ground war, just before U.S. and allied forces close with Iraqi forces and then again on the approaches to Baghdad. If chemical attacks cause massive casualties, that will be best for Baghdad. But if they merely force the attackers into inefficient anti-chemical warfare suits (MOP4) and disrupt the attack, the fact that Iraqi positions held in the face of attack will, Hussein seems to hope, change the morale of his troops sufficiently to carry out the rest of the plan.

Obviously, if Iraq has deliverable nuclear weapons, then the equation changes dramatically -- particularly if launch sites cannot be determined. However, it is questionable whether Hussein has deliverable nuclear weapons; there is little question that he has chemical weapons. The tactical use of chemical weapons would seem the primary hope of resisting the initial attacks.

Hussein's plan is tenuous at best. It depends on Iraqi troops' ability to survive the air assault without disintegrating, their willingness to stand and fight the Americans, as well as upon effective use of chemical weapons, a U.S. inability to locate and destroy deployed chemical weapons, and ultimately, the assumption that the United States simply cannot take casualties and will look for a cease-fire if the casualties are incurred. The best plan that Baghdad can generate might not be a very effective one -- but if Hussein believes that it has a chance, he will choose it over exile or surrender.

I think this is gonna be a science-fiction war, and our technology and strategery will dazzle history.

Saddam will be dead by the end of the first day...and, should his forces hit ours with chem/bio, they will die in nuclear fire.

Dubya ain't doin' this for kicks, he's damn serious

Time to stomp on the mohammadan bugs and scare crap out of the remaining points in the Axis of Evil.

"The central U.S. assumption is that the Iraqis will disintegrate early in the war, so that Baghdad either will be a prize handed over by a general who has overthrown Hussein or simply will involve a mopping-up operation."

How does Stratfor know what the central U.S. assumption is? Are they running their own intelligence operation on Pentagon planning? Or are they just making stuff up like they did before the Afganistan operation?

This is not a flame. I used to read these guys and hang on their every word, but I could have spent that time reading Debka and it would have been more entertaining and not that much farther from the truth.

Yes, I think Saddam will use his poisons...on our troops, his own people, and U.S. civilian population through our Post Offices here at home...Dubya is serious because the times are grim and he knows it...the democarpers and whiners haven't a clue as to the intention or ability of our enemies...it is scary.

We could be only weeks away from nukes being used in anger...history beckons.

If I were Saddam this is what I would do: I would form up a respectable looking sized force and feint towards the Saudi border, plus launch a lot of Scuds towards the Saudi oilfields. If I were unnopposed (ie the US didn't take the bait) I'd either try to destroy some of the Saudi oil fields or make an all out attempt to capture Mecca.

Neither of those would likely work. The point to it would be to get the US to engage me with the mass of its force. Then with a much smaller, but more determined contingent- his Republican Guards I suppose- I would push balls to the wall for Israel while the Americans were engaged protecting the precious oil. It wouldn't even matter if I made it or not. The goal would be to get Israel to respond and join the attack. I would hope (and let's face it- that's about all I'd be doing at this point- hoping) that there would be some outrage from my Muslim brothers. I would invite Syria and Iran to bring their armies into my nation to kill the infidels. I would also offer them concessions- whatever they capture, they keep. The reasoning being- better for another Muslim nation to take my country than for the Great Satan to do so.

The overall goal of all this would be to make the Second Gulf War much costlier to the US and much more difficult to extract itself from than the first and perhaps set off a bigger Islamic resistance to the US.

Hopeless plan, but Saddam doesn't have a whole universe of options at this point and the size of the US force will be significantly smaller this time around. I suppose our improved air superiority since Desert Storm makes up for a lot of that but it still seems to me that it would be a lot more difficult for a smaller force to cover a lot of the "what if?" contingencies.

We'll see what Saddam has up his sleeve eventually.

In the long run, we need to treat Islamic countries with respect and understanding.

In the long run,leaders of Muslim countries must treat their own people "with respect." Tyranical rulers and mullahs have made sure the Muslim rank and file is dumbed down into willing jihadis for Allah. Only 300 books from the West were translated into Arabic last year PBS reported, and those are almost impossible to find in the ME. This is showing respect for Arabs' minds? Those who manage to get a meaningful education have to come to the West to do so.

In the Middle East, dictators' cliques collect so much bakshish from would-be entrepreneurs that those who hope to build a business go broke from paying bribes before their companies get off the ground. But those who manage to migrate to the USA do very well, indeed.

Tell me more about "respect" for Muslims.

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